Microsoft plans on unleashing Internet TV on or around September 27th, which will enable Media Center users to watch a variety of on-demand, ad-supported content free of charge. While details were kept slim, we do know that content will
fall into Sports, Entertainment, News, Top Picks, Music and Movies categories. Additionally, the videos will reportedly be "better than SD quality, but not HD," although HD programs could certainly emerge in the future. Best of all, this feature will simply
be delivered as a normal software update

Microsoft plans on unleashing Internet TV on or around September 27th, which will enable Media Center users to watch a variety of on-demand, ad-supported content free of charge. While details were kept slim, we do know that content will
fall into Sports, Entertainment, News, Top Picks, Music and Movies categories. Additionally, the videos will reportedly be "better than SD quality, but not HD," although HD programs could certainly emerge in the future. Best of all, this feature will simply
be delivered as a normal software update

Microsoft plans on unleashing Internet TV on or around September 27th, which will enable Media Center users to watch a variety of on-demand, ad-supported content free of charge. While details were kept slim, we do know that content will
fall into Sports, Entertainment, News, Top Picks, Music and Movies categories. Additionally, the videos will reportedly be "better than SD quality, but not HD," although HD programs could certainly emerge in the future. Best of all, this feature will simply
be delivered as a normal software update

Microsoft plans on unleashing Internet TV on or around September 27th, which will enable Media Center users to watch a variety of on-demand, ad-supported content free of charge. While details were kept slim, we do know that content will
fall into Sports, Entertainment, News, Top Picks, Music and Movies categories. Additionally, the videos will reportedly be "better than SD quality, but not HD," although HD programs could certainly emerge in the future. Best of all, this feature will simply
be delivered as a normal software update

Unless it supports YouTube (a la AppleTV) this will flop.

No-one wants to watch adverts.

Oh, I don't know. For free movies that are legal, I'm willing to watch adverts. I mean I watch Film 4 on Freeview often enough ...
I'm looking forward to it (assuming it's available in the UK?).

﻿Oh, I don't know. For free movies that are legal, I'm willing to watch adverts. I mean I watch Film 4 on Freeview often enough ...

Filmfour has good films.

If this is Microsoft's attempt at being a content provider/producer, I wish them the best of luck, but they're going to have a hard time negociating
free movies and other high-quality media from the big studios funded entirely by advert revenue.

Then there's the issue of DRM to contend with.

Dr Herbie wrote:

﻿I'm looking forward to it (assuming it's available in the UK?).

Most naive statement I've heard today you already know MCE is crippled (# of tuner-wise) outside the USA, and the "Sports" thing only works in the US too.

Then there's SPOT watches: US only
CableCARD support: US only
HD tuner support: US only
WMP-store integration: US only
Windows native ADSL support: US only
Windows native ISDN support: US only
Affordable software prices: US only (Although Adobe is far worse in this respect)

Microsoft may be US-biased (what with being based there), but they are an international company, so they'd better start acting like it.

Microsoft plans on unleashing Internet TV on or around September 27th, which will enable Media Center users to watch a variety of on-demand, ad-supported content free of charge. While details were kept slim, we do know that content will
fall into Sports, Entertainment, News, Top Picks, Music and Movies categories. Additionally, the videos will reportedly be "better than SD quality, but not HD," although HD programs could certainly emerge in the future. Best of all, this feature will simply
be delivered as a normal software update

Unless it supports YouTube (a la AppleTV) this will flop.

No-one wants to watch adverts.

no one wants to watch ads. true.
I do not know about "across the pond" but in the US tv stations run ads to pay for running tv stations, very very few cable channels do not have ads.
so the ads are no big deal as long as they are no worse than tv ads.

﻿
If this is Microsoft's attempt at being a content provider/producer, I wish them the best of luck, but they're going to have a hard time negociating
free movies and other high-quality media from the big studios funded entirely by advert revenue.

No. Last I heard, MS' IPTV thingy is a joint effort by MS, content producers, and cable provider. So, it's more of an attempt to make the Xbox into a Tivo.